The Boy's Tale (25 page)

The chapter house door must have been left open to the lovely morning air, giving clear scope to Dame Alys's booming voice. At this distance Frevisse could not make out the words—the women at the cloister door were apparently having better luck—but the temper and indignation carried well. Dame Alys was in full cry against something or someone.

Frevisse clapped her hands sharply, once. The women turned toward her with guilty starts, except the one leaning farthest into the opening who had to be jostled by a neighbor before she joined the others in quick curtsies toward Frevisse and scuttled away to disappear into the old guest-hall the other side of the gateway. When they were gone, Frevisse hesitated a moment, listening to Dame Alys's voice go on, fulminating at whatever had aroused her ire. She was in full cry, not likely to stop soon, and Frevisse turned back into the guesthall. There was small use in presenting the need to bring Sir Gawyn into the cloister to the nuns in chapter with Dame Alys in that mood. Chapter meeting was open for discussion, and once the matter was given over to everyone to have their say, it could easily be the hour of Tierce before they had done with it. It would be better to wait until after chapter and speak only to Dame Claire. Persuading her of the necessity would take less time and far less arguing.

Frevisse's honesty dragged her to admit that avoiding the general arguing in chapter lay strongly behind her choice, but it was also true that Dame Claire presenting a completed decision to the others later was the quickest way to have Sir Gawyn into safety. Meanwhile there was something she had meant to do, useless though it seemed to be now.

A quick question to Ela in the guesthall took her down to the kitchen in search of Nell. From her time as hosteler she remembered Nell as a wisp of a young woman with a soft heart and kind ways, clever enough to follow instructions without having to be told twice and shown how in the bargain.

Nell was sitting on a stool in the chimney corner where a slanted shaft of morning light through one of the small, high windows fell brightly. A sewing basket was on the floor beside her, but she was not sewing, only sitting, gazing sadly at the floor, her hands lying in her lap on what Frevisse guessed was a man's white shirt. Absorbed in her thoughts, she did not notice Frevisse until, standing in front of her, Frevisse said, "Is that Will's shirt?"

Nell quickly rose and curtsied, the shirt pressed to her bosom now. "Yes, Dame, pardon, I didn't see you come. Yes, it is, please you."

Not wanting Nell too uneased to answer questions readily, Frevisse smiled kindly. "He gave it to you to mend for him?"

"Yes, Dame." Nell held it out to her. "I've finished with it just now. Even though . . ." Her voice trembled away. She said instead, "Are his people wanting it back now?"

"We'll maybe need it to bury him in," Frevisse said. A tear slipped from one of Nell's eyes. It appeared that Will had made a conquest. In surprise, Frevisse asked, "Had you become . . . friends with him?"

"Oh no, Dame! Of course not, I know better than that, him just passing through, not here for long or anything. But ... he spoke kindly to me. We talked a little, now and again. Nothing more. Was it . . . Did he die . . . Was it horrible?"

Her question was not morbid curiosity but pained concern, and Frevisse answered her, "No. A single stab to his heart. If he felt anything, it was only for a moment. Then he was dead."

Someone had known just where to strike after taking his dagger from him, and had done it with great strength. Not easy, surely, in that small space and with Will already wary from Colwin's death and the attempt on the boys. Someone was very skilled. Or very lucky. And desperate and ruthless to have taken his chance where he could so easily have been heard or seen.

Nell sighed. "That's not so bad then. Though he died unshriven and all, and that's bad, but maybe he had a chance to say Godamercy and that would help, wouldn't it?"

"Assuredly," Frevisse said. "I'll do extra prayers for him, to help."

"And I will, too. I hope they find whoever did it and gibbet him high!" But there was fear as well as anger in Nell's voice, and she added, "They'll catch him soon, won't they, the man who's doing this?"

"Yes, of course. It would be charity to pray for the other man who's dead, too. For Colwin."

"I will, though he wasn't nearly so good as Will. I think he would have bullied a girl if he'd had the chance, would that Colwin fellow. He was more fond of himself than he'd reason to be. Oh my!" She crossed herself. "I'm speaking ill of the dead and him not even buried yet. It's awful, people being killed like this, all of a sudden. And nearer all the time. Nobody wants to sleep here tonight but where could we go and know we're safer, I ask you?"

"I doubt any of you are in peril. It's the people who came with Sir Gawyn who are dying. May I see Will's shirt?"

"What? Oh, surely, indeed, Dame Frevisse. Here."

She held it out readily and Frevisse took it. "You've made a grand mend of it. Where was it ripped?"

Pleased to be praised, Nell showed her. "Here, just along the shoulder seam. A big rip it was."

"Yes, now I can see. How did he do it?"

"He didn't say. He just asked me to mend it and I said I would. I was glad to, he was so pleasant and—"

"Was there anything else wrong with the shirt? Was it wet or anything? Or dirty as if he'd been in a fight or some such thing?"

"Just man-dirty. It's still not been washed. I was going to do that. See, it's grimed around neck and sleeve edges. But no, it wasn't wet."

Frevisse gave it back to her. There was nothing about it to tell her anything except that Will had told the truth at least about it being ripped. But he had lied to her about how, and how would she find out the truth of it, now that Will was dead?

She found chapter meeting had ended when she came out of the guesthall and saw Dame Alys crossing the yard toward her, on her way to her morning bullying of the guesthall servants. Frevisse, when she had been hosteler, had found they worked well enough if an eye was kept on them and an ear given to their troubles, but Dame Alys seemed to find them all a lazy pack of scruff-ridden layabouts, to use her own words, lice-headed fools who needed her constant nagging to do anything at all. By the lowering expression on her face, things were going to go worse than usual for them today, and seeing Frevisse in her way plainly did not help.

"You, Dame!" Dame Alys demanded. "What have you been about that you couldn't be bothered to come to chapter?"

Frevisse braced herself and said, "Master Naylor wanted to see me because the squire Will had been killed in the night in the guesthall's back passage."

Dame Alys sucked in her breath through clenched teeth. "Killed? Murdered, like the other one? In my guesthall? And Naylor summoned you instead of me? That's wrong, Dame! The guesthalls are mine, not yours anymore!"

"It isn't a matter of the guesthall. It's a matter of murder and in that the problem is mine."

"And
that's
wrong!" Dame Alys declared. "You're seeing into what isn't your business. That's Dame Claire's doing and
she's
wrong to let you do it!"

There was never any use in answering Dame Alys's anger with anger; it only drove her to greater excesses. As mildly as she could, Frevisse said, "It's only until the crowner can come. Then—"

"Five men killed hardly a week ago and now two more dead on our doorstep! We're in need of more than the crowner. We're in need of armed men to hunt down whoever is doing this and keep us safe while they do. It's out of hand and ought to be stopped. There's been enough of it, and if Dame Claire doesn't do something now, somebody else ought to!"

"I'm trying to, Dame," Frevisse said evenly.

"But it isn't you who should be trying! It's Dame Claire's friendship for you that's brought us to this. There was never this sort of thing when Domina Edith had her way here. I said as much in chapter this morning and I'll say it again. There are things wrong here, very wrong, and it's clear Dame Claire can't put them right!"

Frevisse abruptly understood it was not the murders that had her in such a rage, or even that Frevisse had been called to the guesthall instead of her this morning. Those were merely sticks to beat the matter she was really angry over—that Dame Claire had authority she did not have, and that when the time came Dame Claire would in all likelihood be elected prioress instead of her. What made it worse was that Dame Alys had an edge of right to what she said. It was not Frevisse's place to be doing what she was doing over the murders, and only Dame Claire's permission allowed it. And there was indeed something very wrong here: something she was deliberately concealing not only from the nuns but very specifically from Dame Claire who had the greatest right to know. Stiffly, knowing that if everything eventually came out in its tangled detail she would be at Dame Alys's mercy, Frevisse said, "I'm sorry you've been offended," and moved away from her.

'There'll be more about this in chapter tomorrow!" Dame Alys declared at her back, loudly enough to be heard from guesthall to cloister.

Head and back held straight, Frevisse went on, refusing her any answer.

She found Dame Claire at her duties as cellarer in the kitchen, waited while she finished discussing what greens there were for dinner, and asked her to come to the slype. Dame Claire gave her a hard, questioning look but came. She was pale from the night spent in prayer in the church, but as Frevisse detailed Will's death her face lost what color it had left. Shaken out of her usual, competent calm, she said, "Another murder? How can this be happening? What are we going to do?"

"Bring Sir Gawyn and Mistress Maryon into the infirmary for their own safety," Frevisse said promptly.

"You can't be serious!"

"A badly injured man is in peril of his life. He can stay in the infirmary and not even be seen."

"Dame Frevisse, have you thought about what you're asking? Bring a
man
into the cloister?"

"And a lady. These people are in danger and unable to help themselves. How can we refuse them the greatest safety that we have?"

"How much safer will they be in here?" Dame Claire returned. "Whoever is doing this is apparently desperate and assuredly bold."

"But the boys have only been attacked when they're outside the cloister, and whoever shoved them in the water yesterday and then killed Colwin didn't attack me. Something holds him back at least that much."

"But if there's no other way to come at his prey—"

"Master Naylor can put a guard at every door."

"There aren't men to spare."

"For this he'll have men."

Dame Claire's chill expression did not change.

Desperately, Frevisse said, quoting from the Rule, " 'Let all who come to the monastery be welcomed like Christ, for he will say—'"

Dame Claire interrupted her with uncharacteristic impatience, her eyes angry. "Your point is made. But in all its existence, there has never been a man allowed to stay in our cloister."

Frevisse made no reply, only waited.

At last Dame Claire said, "Can this wait at least until Sext so Sir Gawyn can be brought in without any of us seeing him?"

"Yes," Frevisse agreed quickly, relieved and willing to accept nearly any concession so long as he and Maryon could come into safety.

"Then send Master Naylor word of it and that he's to post the guards as he sees fit. But mind, whatever comes, even the end of the world, you're at Sext."

Frevisse bowed her head and curtsied. "Yes, Dame."

Dame Claire made to go, then said instead, angrily, "What is it about these boys? They're the cause of this all, aren't they? Why is this happening?"

Miserably, Frevisse could only shake her head. "I can't tell you."

"What if something happens to you? How will I know what is going on or what's best to do if something happens to you?"